this, I was going to do this. I had to move quickly. So many of my alarms / warning bells were already sounding in my head. I wanted to make a move before they could stop me.
So I did it.
I leaned forward, pressing my lips to his. There was a moment where I registered his warmth, the softness of his lips.
But before he could respond to me at all, I was moving away from him, crouching on the floor because I felt like I was falling. The room was spinning, and I was convinced I was going to pass out. My heart thumped hard against my chest, and my rib cage was constricted, like someone was sitting on me. I couldn’t breathe.
Then Noah was there next to me, not touching me, but he made me feel like I could draw on his strength. “Breathe. Five things you can see.”
I struggled to focus, to be in charge of my hysterical brain, trying to drag air in and out of my chest. I saw his robot socks. I saw Magnus, who had come over to investigate why we were on the floor. I saw a pile of Noah’s books, the gross avocado carpet. The couch where we had been sitting.
My limbs were shaking so hard.
“You’re okay. Keep breathing. Four things you can touch.”
I dug my fingers into that carpet. I felt my soft T-shirt against my skin. The hair from my ponytail against my cheek. My shoes straining across my feet.
“Now three things you can hear.”
Noah’s voice. Magnus’s panting. My own strangled breathing. I tried hard to slow it down. To keep breathing in and out. In and out. Inhale, exhale.
My stomach was clenching so hard. I was going to throw up. I gritted my teeth against it. I could beat this thing. I could be stronger than this . . . what had Noah called it? My hardwired response. I would rewire it.
“One you can taste.”
“There’s nothing to taste,” I told him, finally able to catch my breath enough that I could talk. “Maybe my bile in a second after I puke.”
“I’ve definitely never caused that reaction before. My reviews tend to be more on the positive side.”
He was trying to make me laugh. I wished I had the lung capacity for it. “Are you Yelping out your kissing? Are there online reviews?”
His smile was enormous, and I both saw and felt his relief that I was able to joke with him. Magnus seemed to sense my lingering distress, and he leaned in to lick my face. Noah got up and left the room but came back quickly to sit down next to me on the floor again.
Noah commented, “You know, as much as that dog of mine loves his own vomit, it’s a safe bet he’d enjoy yours, too. So it would probably be better if you didn’t throw up, because neither one of us needs to see that.”
“But if I puked on this carpet, how would you even be able to tell?”
He laughed. “Here.”
I heard a crinkling sound and looked up at the Snickers bar he was handing me. He said, “The next time you’re thinking of a taste, think of something you love. Like chocolate.”
My stomach had calmed down enough that I wanted to take a bite. My fingers were shaking so badly that he had to help me open the candy bar. I took a bite, and that sugar rush actually soothed me. Why hadn’t this ever occurred to me before? “This chocolate thing works. Like in Harry Potter.”
“I hope I kiss better than a dementor.”
OMG. He spoke nerd. If I didn’t know what the end result would be, I might actually consider kissing him again. It took a few minutes to calm down, for my body to realize we weren’t about to die and that things were okay. That I had panicked, once again, over nothing.
But Noah didn’t seem to view this as a failure. “You did it. It was hard and scary, but you got through it.”
“Maybe it’ll be easier next time,” I said. He had really impressed me through this—how calm and gentle he’d been, how encouraging. The research he’d done, the way he’d memorized the steps to help keep me grounded through the attack. He was definitely the right guy to help me get past this.
He looked surprised. “You want there to be a next time?”